Fly Tying: January, 2017

The Josh Linn Special

At our October, 2016 meeting Josh Linn gave us an informative presentation about steelhead fishing in the Columbia River basin. Josh is an experienced northwest steelhead fisherman, having guided on the John Day, Sandy, Clackamas, Klickitat, and Grande Ronde rivers. My ears perked up when he started describing a fly he had created that had become his go-to fly for winter steelhead. I later talked to him at The Royal Treatment Fly Shop and got some details about his creation and decided that it would be a good choice for our monthly fly tying night. I asked Josh what he called his fly and he said I could call it whatever I wanted because it didn’t have a name. So we’re calling it the Josh Linn Special.

I think that fishermen would be foolish to disregard tips, tricks, and advice from those that are more knowledgeable than we are. And like all of the people at The Royal Treatment Josh is very knowledgeable about all aspects of fly-fishing. And it’s safe to say that he catches more fish than most of us. (Of course he probably fishes more than most of us!) So when he says this fly produces fish I think we should at least give it a serious look.

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I got the recipe from Josh and found that it is a tube fly much like Brian Silvey’s Silveynator that we tied last year, but with a few other innovations. Josh ties them in numerous color combinations and usually with some weight. He likes them large when the water is cloudy and ties them smaller when the water is low and clear. One suggestion would be to tie them all on the large side and keep a pair of scissors available to trim the flies shorter as needed. And there is no reason to not use them for summer steelhead as well, such as on the Deschutes when the sun is on the water and you are using a sink tip when the fish are no longer looking up.

I tied up a few Josh Linn Specials and felt the need to test drive them on the Clackamas just after Christmas and was rewarded with my first winter steelhead of the season on the second day out on the water. Not a large fish but it was a nice frisky wild steelhead. The fly I used was actually one of the flies shown on this page. I’ll leave it to you to guess which one it was but they should all be productive.

The winter steelhead season is just getting underway so think about joining us at our next evening of fly tying when we will be tying up some Josh Linn Specials. The winter weather has played havoc with all of the club’s scheduled activities and Fly Tying Night has been moved to Wednesday, February 1st . We’ll be meeting at The Royal Treatment Fly Shop in West Linn at 6:00 pm. Hope to see you there!